Sitting on the beach so very long ago, he said with just enough concern, just enough caution, just enough respect.

Concern. Caution. Respect. I guess Creedance Clearwater Revival and the myriad of lawyers entrenched in the never ending battle to fuck with people wouldn't approve of abbreviating.

So what. We travel through, around, and with the people on the bus with the wheels that go round and round. Just as easily, we wiper blade away all those that cause us fear, rejection, dismay; disappointment. The rain from those will continue to fall, no matter how far we try to distance ourselves from them. Because they have alighted your life.

No matter the scars that my eldest son contiues to provide on my wretched soul, being, heart; I cant fathom wiping away the person. He has walked out on his family, my grandkids, his children. He has stolen money, valuables, years from us. Removed the possiblity of having or exsisting in any kind of normal life. The lies, manipulations, curses and demands continue in a never-ending yarn of bulsshit and butterflies that die in the damn heat of a bright light.

I dont mind having to be the Dad. I just wanted to be the grandfther first. Thats pretty fair to ask, eh? But fair doesnt exsist. No, fair does not. Why? Because fair would mean that everywhere, everyone gets treated evenly, and that aint gonna happened. Asks the victims of any and all discrimination, hate, bigotry, whatevers. Fair wont come, because fair is 29% interest rates when you aint never late, fair is OK you are approved, ooops, sorry you aint. Fair is 88 hour work weeks nudged ever earning to nothingness due to a lack of respect, common decency, and truthfulness.

So many stares into the abyss of blackness that is what ends. What ends? The end of being. I dont claim to be the first nor the last that will assert that in doing anything you take chances. I guess having a kid is a chance taken; having one that forever breaks your being is one of them. I remember charging into waves that I cant describe, the feeling of just edging into that abyss, and controlling it, as well as the abyss consuming me. The happenchance of surviving a hold down; getting yet another set of stitches or what else I happened to fuck up on out in the blue.

Holding someones lifeless body under my care; and the what if's of the carnage that surrounds it. I stand in awe of the human spirit to survive. How many compressions in CPR before you crack the ribs of an elderly male whose exsistence is fleeting away? Not many. The dead stare. That one eye, dead stare from a young girl. Haunting my brain forever;and yet i think I have problems.

On days when boredom and regularness were aborted mid-shift by the call of a apartment on fire, and dragging a person out of that inferno only to feel the seared flesh ripping apart in my hands. But if he didnt die, all of us would have when the godamn Oxygen tank exploded right after the door closed after removing him. And the fucking door had a auto-close feature; what if it didnt?

After being awake for 24 hours wondering where the hell my son was, since he was 17 and high and drunk, having to go to work; and the first call is a childbirth. deliveing that child in a home where I dont know who lives there, and bringing anotherhuman into this world while mine begins a decent into hell?

Sucking the vomitus out of a baby whose parents were clueless to as to why their child was blue and not breathing? What of that persons life now? Are they happy? I pray so.

I want to quit so badly; I want to escape the damn taped images of shit-i-dont-want-to-remember. I hate to admit the jealousy I feel when I see such happy people/unions that I cant get to occur, no matter what effort I mount. It really disturbs me to feel that way; what the fuck is wrong with me? How can I feel that animosity to unknowns?

I guess I have lost respect of self in the life of living this.

The immense feeling of joy, happiness, complete and utter fascination with the grandkids only (yes, and Maile too) provides a respit to the challenges. I fear greatly that these small journeys will not hold up the onslaught of continued disappointments. Yet, they must.

Whats in the mirror now looks and walks; talks like me, but is nothing of what I am inside.